How To Become Your Own BOSS and Control Your Life | Damon Dash's Advice in 14 Minutes

Every time you create a new business, you gotta struggle a little bit, and it takes a while to build a brand. It takes about 5 years to be consistent.

Failing is never failing, it's always a learning experience.

It takes fearlessness to be first, you know, to not move with the crowd, to move alone.

What's up, Believe Nation? It's Evan. My one word is believe, and I believe in you. I believe in your potential, and I wanna see that thing that you've got inside you explode out into the world to have a big impact for you, your family, and the world. So to help you on your journey today, we're gonna learn from entrepreneur and music producer Damon Dash and my take on his Top 10 Rules for Success Volume 2. Rule number 1 is my personal favorite, and I'd love to know which one you guys like the best. And as always, guys, as you're watching, if you hear something that really, really resonates with you, please leave it down in the comments below and put quotes around it so other people can be inspired. And when you write it down, it's much more likely to stick for yourself as well. Enjoy!

How do you stay motivated and not get burned out? I only do what I love. You gotta do what you love. You can't get burnt out. And I do get burnt out. You know, once I'm in a business and I don't enjoy it no more, that's the thing. I can't, it's hard for me to stay in the business for a long period of time because the people tend to make me sick. Mm-hmm. So as soon as I start to get aggravated, you know, it's like I'll be on the block. If the block starts to make me mad, I go to another block. Even if I got the block clicking, it's just like I won't compromise my quality of living. You know what I'm saying? But like right now what I'm doing is, you know, I'm building things that I could pass to my kids, but only things that I love and my family. So I love making movies, I'm making movies. I love it. I don't think I'm gonna be burnt out with that anytime soon, you know? And then also when you're in the business of making money off other people, that person could make you sick and you don't wanna make money off 'em no more. So that's the reason why I try to only make money off myself these days. And also do things that, you know, my girl or my wife, Rocky, if she's inspired, then we'll do that business. And like, some revolving my children, I'll do that business. But I worked hard to put myself in that position.

Was there some pivotal moment for you in your life where you just really got it and something happened, a fire ignited inside you that made it so that you had all the moving parts to make this amazing career unfold?

I think the death of my mother probably got me really focused and I understood that there wasn't gonna be anyone there to take care of me, I had to take care of myself. And just outta respect for her life and all the things she did to make me a better person, I had to apply all those things. So, you know, at like 17— my mother died when I was 16. At 17, you know, I was running the streets so heavy and it was getting so critical that I put myself in boarding school. You know, I figured out how to get a scholarship, and because of the ability that my mother gave me to articulate what's on my mind, to read, to write, you know, to not be afraid, and also I was, you know, boxing, so I went to the Boys Club and they were giving out scholarships for, you know, you took a test. I passed the test, and, you know, I made it. And I would just always able to put myself in a better place. I never let anybody else control my destiny. My mom's taught me to make things happen on my own, not to depend on anybody. And if I have an opinion, to speak on it.

The only way to be a professional is to work harder than everybody. A professional, like a professional baseball player, a boxer, is someone that's better than everyone else. That's why he gets paid so much to do it. That means work. It ain't nothing professional gonna get given to you. There's some sacrifice, there's always pain. And, you know, it's always gonna be dark times because that's part of business. Every time you create a new business, you gotta struggle a little bit. And it takes a while to build a brand. It takes about 5 years to be consistent. Like my first 5 years, you know, I'm not saying nothing different. I've been saying the same exact stuff. If you go look at, um, um, um, Backstage and any kind of argument I had, it's always been consistent. It's just people weren't ready for it. They didn't trust it. But after I've been saying it for 10 years or 5, you know, 5 to 10, now it's a brand. I have a brand for it. I'm consistent.

I back it up. I'm still here.

I'm still up. Even when, you know, being an independent meant looking like you was down.

Failing is never failing, it's always a learning experience. So the thing about business is how deep your pocket is. I always say that, like, if you got a lot of money, you can sustain these losses until they turn into gains. But if you have a short paper, if your money's not long, or if you don't have enough, you have to make sure that those losses don't kill and compromise your pocket.

And at that point, you got to get creative.

But when you do anything, you get better at it the more you do it. And the first time you do anything, you usually don't do it correct. So it's not failure, it's learning experience. If you would get up And it's like in a fight, the first round you might get knocked out, but by the last round you get up and knock that person out. Who won? You might have lost the round, but you win the whole fight. But you got to lose some rounds in business, but at the end of the day, you want that unanimous decision. You got to keep going. You got to finish the fight. The question is, do you have the stamina to finish?

But you get on the web and you check out who's Dame Dash, and there's so much crap. How do you deal with that, and how do you suggest other people deal with it when they reach a certain level of celebrity?

I mean, when you sign on to being a certain level of celebrity, you got to know they're going to say things and, you know, things are going to get eyeballs and get people to buy, you know what I'm saying? And, you know, I just— I really don't care. And one of the reasons why I think I've been successful is because I didn't care. If I cared, I probably would be too scared to promote people that people don't want to promote, you know? It takes fearlessness to be first, you know, to not move with a crowd, to move alone.

You know?

And you get scrutinized by people that do move with a crowd because they got to make you look bad to make themselves look good. It's all part of the game. It's like a guy that's in high school that gets all the girls. The rest of the dudes hate him in high school. So my whole life has been being that guy in high school that everyone hates 'cause I keep taking their girls.

I can understand that.

It's not a bad life. So that's how I look at it. The price of success is unsuccessful people don't like you. Who cares? Like, successful people don't care about what another person's doing.

'Cause successful people want everybody else to succeed too.

Exactly. That's my point.

You know, that's this whole mindset that people don't understand.

Right. So it's usually a bunch of unsuccessful, bitter people. And you know, I was a guy in school that, you know, was— got kicked out of every school. I was the class clown. You know, I wasn't the guy that you would traditionally think would be— go this far. So me making it made all my teachers look stupid. Every principal that kicked me out of school looked stupid. You know, I went to South Kent in Connecticut on scholarship. I didn't come back the next year. The next time I came back was on a helicopter and I landed it on the soccer field. You know, when I got kicked outta Dwight in the 7th grade, you know, my son came back and they were asking me, you know, I put my son through there, I paid full tuition plus extras for tutoring and they asked me to build a library. I'm like, the same principal that kicked me out is asking me to build a library. So it's egg on all their faces. My success makes a lot of people look like they were wrong because a lot of people articulated the fact that I wouldn't be what I am today. And either way, I didn't care, but I think it's kind of funny. It's egg all over they face scrambled.

I think entrepreneurship is in everyone, but not everyone has the discipline for it. But anyone can be an entrepreneur, but not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur. Some people rather depend on other people 'cause they feel like they don't have to work as hard. But being an entrepreneur means working hard. It means embracing struggle. It means being a leader. Leadership means never sending somebody to do something that you wouldn't do yourself. A real boss would never send somebody to do something they wouldn't do themselves. A boss that tells somebody to do something that they wouldn't do is not a boss, he's a coward. And I— that, that— those principles came to me from the people I knew in the street, right? So somebody gonna be like, yo, kill that nigga for me, but you think you killing yourself. I know all about it, you understand what I'm saying? You're a guy that'll be pushing buttons but you won't do nothing. Yeah, you're not a real boss.

I just want to do so much that Every dollar goes back into the street. Like, I just pay my bills and if I want to buy something, I'll buy it. But, you know, I'm generally trying to independently finance all my, all the things that inspire me without compromise. So every time I pay for, like, I already know I'm not holding no money. Like, I already know how I'm spending my first billion. I'm gonna buy a football team. You know what I'm saying? Like, I have no intention on holding any money. And the only way to get to a billion is to keep putting money back into the companies and flipping. And I'mma just be flipping my whole life. You know, that's just my game. As long as I got cash flow, I'm cool, you know? I don't really believe in holding no money. I think that's for suckers.

It's hard. You do a lot, and it's all relative. You know what I mean? Like, the first time I heard a record on the radio, I was excited. The first time I saw my video on television, I was excited. The first time I saw a movie at a theatrical level, it was very exciting, you know? First times of anything are exciting, and I tend to have a lot of first times. You understand what I'm saying?

Yeah, that's absolutely incredible.

So I try to recreate that first time feeling by doing new things. You know, traveling the world is important. Opening up art galleries all over the world has been fun. You know, opened up an art gallery in Hong Kong was dope, as well as Charleston, as well as the Lower East Side, as well as Tribeca. All of those first times were great. You know what I'm saying? Being in different neighborhoods, moving and not being scared to, you know, have growing pains. And things to that nature. So it's all been really fun. It's been a blast.

A business plan that's about a business that doesn't exist is a lie because you can't, you can't say, like, what are your facts based on?

Because it hasn't happened yet.

You can't really determine who's gonna buy what and how much it's gonna sell. You can't say, I'm gonna make a million this year. Did you make a million last year? No. But what I'll do is put together what I— it's like a script. I'll put together how I'm gonna make the goods, how I'm gonna market the goods, how much it's gonna cost to buy the goods, what's my margin, and then when I'm gonna sell it, and then how much I'm gonna put back into the business and how much I'm gonna put in my pocket, right? You know, it's that kind of thing. You know, I write things out.

Like, if you look on the—

look on the, um, put that on the wall right there, right? If you can see it, you see the piece of paper, all that on the—

on the—

that's the shit I gotta do.

You know, I, I like to put things on the wall.

I can even know what I got to do. I need to look at it. I need to cross it out. I don't consider that a business plan per se, but I have a plan, you know what I'm saying? Like, I have a plan. Plus, you want other people to understand the plan because you can't do anything on your own. So you want to be able to articulate it to them a way they understand and that they can look back at it. Because I talk quick, and like you said, a lot of times I say shit, you like, I didn't understand that. You're not gonna tell me until a year later. Yeah, you know, so you want to have something someone can keep looking at. And they can see you crossing it off, and then they can kind of get it by absorbing, pause, you know, by watching what you're doing.

You know, I support the arts and I give people platforms, you know what I'm saying? Like, to me, a real person that is supposed to be a leader is supposed to serve the people, you know what I'm saying? That's what you're supposed to do. You're not supposed to be worried about yourself. You know what I was— I've been thinking about lately? You notice that in the music business, traditionally, it's the businessman that's robbing the artist, and they always— the artist ends up with the with the behind the stories of where they are now.

Of where they at now.

Nobody—

all my artists that I ever touch are rich.

They doing well, and I'm the one that's always looking broke.

Why?

Isn't that weird? It's because I give it all away. I'm not trying to take an artist and have him in my pocket for his life and jerk him and have him resent me, you know what I'm saying? I'm ready to get him out my pocket, be like, look, man, go win, go eat, go be yourself, but leave me alone.

Thank you guys so much for watching. I made this video because Jose Cruz asked me to. If there's someone you'd like me to cover in a future top 10, check out the link in the description and go and cast your vote. I'd also love to know what did you learn from this video? What lesson really hit home the hardest? What are you going to immediately apply somehow to your life or to your business? Leave it down in the comments below. I'm really curious to find out. I also want to give a quick shout out to Melissa Alexandria. Melissa, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word, and doing the review and posting it to your channel. I really, really appreciate your support and I'm so glad that you enjoyed the read. Thank you guys again for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love. I'll see you soon.

You know, and the one thing you have to really never do is compare yourself to other people. Absolutely. That's the one thing you can't do is judge your success to someone else's.

Because a lot of people are willing to—

That's what social media does, man. The people, man, looking at people's pages and you like, damn, I just— It could. That's a part of it.

If you're insecure, yes. If you're insecure, social media could destroy you.

There's a lot of people that think that the only way you can make it, especially in our business, the entertainment industry, that, you know, you can't be an honorable, honest, hardworking person. You've got to be willing to do whatever it takes, regardless of how you compromise your own ethics, to get to wherever it is you want to get. And I've never believed that, and it doesn't sound like you believe it either.

Nah, you know, I don't consider that a win. I consider that cheating, and I can't live with myself if I don't play the game right. But other people don't. Like, you go into different cultures And especially in business, it's like, yo, you gotta win any way you can. If somebody's slipping and you don't take advantage of it, you're dishonoring your family. Like, I've been in cultures like that, you know, where lying is okay for the business. You know, you're supposed to do that or else you're a sucker. So, you know, it's just a matter of perspective and the cloth you're cut from. And, you know, it's a rougher world when everyone is cheating and you're playing the game right. You know, it's a tough world. But at the end of the day, it's worth it because, you know, there's nothing more valuable than your soul, your integrity, your freedom, you know, just being proud of yourself. I just don't feel like, you know, when you can't call yourself a winner if you're cheating, you know, you're a cheater. You know, that's just how I feel. And you might not get caught in human form, but God will get you. You can't hide from God or whatever the supreme being is. But a go-getter, or when you're telling somebody to eat the food they killed, that's the same thing as saying you got to put up your own money. Like a lot of people be like, yo, I need a check. You know what I'm saying?

I need it.

I have to pay my bills. So they won't take any chances. They'll do minimal. Actually, they'll try to escape work. They'll live for Friday just so they could just pay those bills or be in debt. But when you tell somebody to eat the food they kill, they got to go out there, they got to work, they got to win. And if they don't make money, they don't pay their bills. But to me, it's a non-option. I'm gonna make my bread. So let me give you the one word secret to happiness. One word. This is all you need to be happy.

The most important word ever.

If you had to think of one word that's most important to you or that sums you up or that would be kind of like a little beacon.

Hey, Believe Nation, if you want to know what the most important one word is for Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk, Oprah Winfrey, will.i.am, and Howard Schultz, I have a very special secret video for you. Check the description for details.